You can't get the Fairmonts in manual, and you can't get XRs with the Fairmont-style features, so either way you'd need to do some mods to get the best of both worlds. The EL Fairmont Ghia is an excellent compromise as it has an XR6-style engine and diff. I'd recommend doing the sums as far as what features or performance you want, and what you are willing to spend. If all you want is outright performance, you might as well consider modifying the GLi with forced induction.